The end of film? First studio stops distributing celluloid

Kinda sad considering that Paramount is the oldest of the Hollywood Studios still in existence but since Viacom bought Paramount they can be considered more of a TV Studio than a Movie Studio. UCI Cinemas is owned by Paramount so is Dreamworks Studio so this is really not a good sign. Digital projection does not equal a good anamorphic print projection since it's mostly 2K as oppossed to 4K+ from a good anamorphic print let alone 8 to 12K projection from a 70mm print.
Too many Harvards MBAs in La-La-Land and to few dreamers and true artists
Regarding Perfect quality what is perfect nothing so the medium that shows life shouldn't be either. I know plenty of projectionists who prefer film to digital projection and there are problems with digital projection and most of them can't be solved by a quick glue job like in the film days

sepiareverb said:

Our local art house just pulled out the projector last week. They have been unable to get many of the films they wanted to show this entire past year as they were never issued on film.

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That sucks but also seems strange. What type of films would an art house want to show that were never issued on film?

The article focused on theatres - projection of digitally shot or digitally processed analog film. The other half of the story is that pictures can still be shot with film and then converted to digital for display which still happens. Where are we with the filming of cinema still using film?

clayne said:

That sucks but also seems strange. What type of films would an art house want to show that were never issued on film?

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Art house not necessarily means only classic but also low budget or off-the-main-track movies. And if those are recent ones they most likely are only released as digital files.

The Cleveland Cinematheque shows old film, experimental movies, and even some newer foreign films. I'm pretty sure it's all film, but the point is, an "Art House" may show something new enough to be digital.

Here's a list with big budget movies and shows shooting on Kodak motion picture film: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Customers/Productions/index.htm

Let's not forget that regardless of medium the cinema is a social experience shared with a sometimes large group of friends and strangers. I'll always remember the whole house reacting to a short and exciting sequence that I had constructed in a small cutting room with only the director for company.

I write this in response to those electing to never go to a cinema but enjoy their films at home. I understand that some cinemas in US can be hazardous and a trip with family can be expensive and that the home cinema is a valid choice, but the slow demise of the social experience concerns me more than digital projection.

BTW film sound has been digital for many, many years but there was no outcry about the loss of the poor quality optical mono track and suggestions of the superiority of the (sort of) synchronised disks that were used as one of the early sound systems.

"In a historic step for Hollywood, Paramount Pictures has become the first major studio to stop releasing movies on film in the United States"
Might this mean that the movies in Question might be released in other countries in film?

no one besides luddites could give a crap what a movie is made with
film or digital media, no one cares, to 9999 out of 10000 people "its just a movie" ..

even film fanatics can't tell the difference between a film image and a digital one

its just one more thing to whine about

Theatre owners that project digital cinema will be sacked with frequent upgrades to their systems. I think it cost over $100k. It doesn't benefit the theaters at all. Only benefits the movie studios by not having to make prints. Right now, the movie studio takes all the receipts from the movie AND 10% of concession sales. But google it.

I saw a 1934 nitrate print of "Counselor at Law" with John Barrymore shown on a projector in a cinema--can't remember if it was UCLA Archives or the Academy of Motion Pictures. The mono sound was terrific, better than the dupe prints shown on TV and probably better than whatever they used as a source for the DVD version. Nitrate is like looking at pure gold on the screen.

Fewer and fewer people will have the experience of seeing the film in the manner it was meant to be shown, but that might change in the future. No one thought that people would pay millions for a Norman Rockwell painting and there's a lot more money behind the commercial art form that film represents. I wonder how many people on APUG have actually seen a dye transfer color film projected? There is nothing like it.


Digital pictures--I like them almost as much as if they were real. The frame is as steady as a good Technicolor print and no dust or splices; plus the best low-light capture ability available. Not much detail and if the images are not captured on film the smears are just terrible. "Hobbitt I" in high frame rate looked worse than a TV set--you could see the actors' make-up! Just another medium; basically an additive color process. Movies I've seen all lean a little to the green with very few good reds. The cinemas have begun lowering the wattage on the projector lights so that now they show a darker black, (full gamma black), but all the other colors fade in the process. This might be because Spielberg complained that the digital projectors don't throw a true black. Or it might be because they are trying to save on electricity.

Movies have always been a money driven enterprise. Either make film cheaper or charge more for a showing. Just have to make a profit and they will teach a pig to dance.

I am sure one of the goals of the big studios is to own the entire chain so they can control it. Forcing theaters to go digital is one way since the capital expenditure is so high. We all know how long digital equipment lasts until there is another generation that has to be bought. Just a thought.

I don't go to the theater much at all anymore. I can't stand the aliasing and all the other digital problems. I would rather see something projected with film. Combine that with the number of people who tweet their brains out right in your line of sight and the price of a ticket... It just isn't worth it. On the upside, in another decade perhaps, the digital image should be pretty spectacular when all of the annoying problems have been worked out.

One of my favorite memories from my life was from back in the early 90's when I lived in Paris. I was dating a girl who loved movies, especially old ones. I must have visited nearly every little theater in the city. Some of them had only a couple dozen seats at most. It was almost like seeing a private viewing in your house. I assume most of them are gone by now. It was a wonderful experience though.

I went to some of those small Paris cinemas in the mid '90s. Great places and films were always shown in the original language, never dubbed.

Isn't Ilford committed to making great b&w film? Kodak in whatever form it takes presently is making fantastic film too. Some other folks may or may not make film for us. Does it really matter? If you have a choice of b&w film for your hobby/profession, you choose Ilford or Kodak, right?

Mainecoonmaniac said:

Only benefits the movie studios by not having to make prints.

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At least in Norway digital benefits the audience. With digital every single digital theatre in the nation can show the movie the night it's released. All the cities and towns have made a coordinated effort to upgrade to digital. With film smaller theatres and rural locations have to wait for the big cities to finish the film, and they only get time for a couple of screenings before they have to pass the film reels on. Now all the theatres can run as many screenings as they like.

Well a smart audience could buy a LED/LCD Projector for home use and get nearly the same quality as most DCP Projection 2K they could have a piss or drink break and view the movie whenever they want not when the cinema wants.
This is a dumping of quality of the highest order nothing less. Regarding the audience most of them wouldn't recognize a good movie if it bit them in their behind. Advertisement trumps quality in the eyes of the public and that's the problem of good cinema of those 100 Millions that the average Hollywood Movie costs 70% are advertising costs not shooting or release costs.

As a note Paramount plans to release only 15 Movies per year, they make most of their money with Spongebob and the like. Archiving will probably still be done one film since digital sucks at long term storage. But it seems that Paramount has some serious cash flow problems in short they are near broke.

I see the benefit in obtaining more flexibilty in screening times.

But what is the benefit in watching a movie the night of release?

Arctic amateur said:

At least in Norway digital benefits the audience. With digital every single digital theatre in the nation can show the movie the night it's released. All the cities and towns have made a coordinated effort to upgrade to digital. With film smaller theatres and rural locations have to wait for the big cities to finish the film, and they only get time for a couple of screenings before they have to pass the film reels on. Now all the theatres can run as many screenings as they like.

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I see the benefit in obtaining more flexibilty in screening times.

But what is the benefit in watching a movie the night of release?

AgX said:

I see the benefit in obtaining more flexibilty in screening times.

But what is the benefit in watching a movie the night of release?

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There seems to be some social pressure to be among the first ones to see popular movies. When movie theaters couldn't deliver (remember Star Wars I?), people turned to file sharing systems and watched to movie on their computers, and of course never bothered rewatching it in the movie theater.

Also, after the first day, many highly advertised and hyped movies receive less than stellar reviews, therefore it helps the bottom line of these movies if as many people as possible can see it on the day of release. They simply wouldn't do that on a later day.

The BIG question (or result) of Major Studios not releasing on film is this: Will the film manufacturing companies, mainly Kodak, but also Agfa continue to have enough volume of film sales to keep their production lines operating. Make no mistake, the whole world of still film is miniscule in comparison to the miles of release stock used by the Movie producers to distribute their product on film. You eliminate that and we may see the end of film, at least color film. The volume production of film stocks for movie production and release provides the profits to continue to make still film emulsions.

PHOTOTONE said:

The BIG question (or result) of Major Studios not releasing on film is this: Will the film manufacturing companies, mainly Kodak, but also Agfa continue to have enough volume of film sales to keep their production lines operating. Make no mistake, the whole world of still film is miniscule in comparison to the miles of release stock used by the Movie producers to distribute their product on film. You eliminate that and we may see the end of film, at least color film. The volume production of film stocks for movie production and release provides the profits to continue to make still film emulsions.

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I did not know color films were still be made. ;-)

At the same time, digital technology has allowed film makers to produce movies on a shoestring budget. No more buying film stock, processing and expensive editing systems. In some respects, technology is the great equalizer.

Seen the overall cost of movie making (even with a small production) film material is still a lesser part.

Having run a synchronous video extraction from the film camera one can use this for editing. Thus working on the film only for the true cutting and splicing.

Filmstock is only a minuscule part of the overall Budget the biggest would be advertisement followed by using Stars (again advertisement) digital fxs are also not cheap old style non digital effects are in fact often cheaper than digital EFX and look better as well. The Studio ownership has changed a lot in the past 10 to 20 years they started out as results from mostly europeans entrepreneurs and are now owned by huge corporations with a corporations mentality

Arctic amateur said:

At least in Norway digital benefits the audience. With digital every single digital theatre in the nation can show the movie the night it's released. All the cities and towns have made a coordinated effort to upgrade to digital. With film smaller theatres and rural locations have to wait for the big cities to finish the film, and they only get time for a couple of screenings before they have to pass the film reels on. Now all the theatres can run as many screenings as they like.

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But a smaller market might still have limited run only, wouldnt it? Unless the money mattered or audience mattered?

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